‘They’re fighting off death': Fears of another Mount Sinjar grow after ISIS surrounds 18,000 Shi’ite Muslims in Iraqi town of Amerli

Posted on August 23, 2014

◾Senior Iraqi cleric expresses grave concern for Shi’ite Turkmen community◾Town faces starvation after food, water and medical supplies are cut off◾Doctor: ‘It’s a disaster. Children are eating only once every three days’◾Victims plead for West to intervene like it did to save Yazidis on Mt Sinjar◾One said: ‘How much suffering must we see? We have been forgotten’◾ISIS suicide bomber kills 46 at mosque 75 miles northeast of Baghdad◾Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond says ‘UK may send support to besieged town’ but added we ‘do not need Assad’s permission for intervention’

By SIMON TOMLINSON FOR MAILONLINE and DAVID WILLIAMS FOR THE DAILY MAIL

Fears are growing for thousands of Muslim Iraqis who have been surrounded by Islamic State militants in a chilling repeat of the siege of Mount Sinjar.

Iraq’s most influential cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, today expressed grave concern for 18,000 Shi’ites in the town of Amerli after their food, water and medical supplies were cut off.

The Shi’ite Turkmen community say they have been living under siege for the last two months after the Sunni jihadists captured the surrounding towns and villages.

Dr Ali Albayati, who lives in Amerli, said: ‘It is a humanitarian disaster – 20,000 people in Amerli are fighting off death.

‘There are children who are only eating once every three days.’

British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond revealed that Britain was closely monitoring the situation and would be willing ‘in principle’ to join an international effort to send support to the besieged town.

But he revealed Britain will not work with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to combat Islamic State fighters in the country – and his permission would not be needed for any military intervention.

Hammond also said Britain had no plans to arm moderate fighters in Syria’s civil war, and insisted that Western troops on the ground in Iraq would only make the situation worse.

His comments came as a militant suicide bomber targeted a Sunni mosque in town 75 miles north-east of Baghdad, killing at least 46 people and wounding 50 others.

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